Our Character As a People

I leave at O’dark-thirty tomorrow morning (4:05 am shuttle pickup) to spend a few days in Phoenix with my 95 year old dad and my sister and brother-in-law. We will celebrate Thanksgiving a week early and I will probably overeat. I’m not expecting to post anything until I get back on Sunday. We have had blue skies with scattered clouds but it’s been a cold, blustery day, which makes for a good day to stay inside and pack for the trip.

What the government will or will not do is finally beside the point. If people do not have the government they want, then they will have a government that they must either change or endure. Finally, all the issues that I have discussed here are neither political nor economic, but moral and spiritual. What is at issue is our character as a people.

Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound

The above quote is near the end of Wendell Berry’s book, called The Hidden Wound. Even though the book was written in 1989 this quote seems to aptly apply to our situation today. I’m not a believer in looking to a government, a new legislation, or some leader to make our social, political or economic situations better, although they can help. For several years our real issues in our society, its government, and I will include the world, are really moral and spiritual. He’s right: What is at issue is our character as a people. What is sad to me is that people do not want, or even know how, to look internally at their character. Or, worse yet, many have no idea what character means. It’s much easier to point a finger elsewhere. Anyway, I will be off line for a few days.